NIGHT TRAIN TO MUNICH (66) (second viewing: 71)

Directed by: Carol Reed (1940)

Starring: Rex Harrison, Margaret Lockwood, Paul von Henreid (Henreid)

The Pitch: On the eve of WW2, a British secret agent poses as a Nazi officer in order to rescue a Czech scientist and his daughter.

Theo Sez: The kind of old-fashioned, light-hearted adventure story that's so full and satisfying it barely seems to matter that the hero's derring-do is accomplished more by luck than design (even the heroine protests that his plan sounds far too simple ; "I have a simple mind," he replies). It's tempting to call it LADY VANISHES lite (same writers, same lead actress, same Mitteleuropean ambience) but in fact, despite the title, only about a third of it is reminiscent of that archetypal Train Movie ; the rest is a combination of patriotic war movie and suave, proto-James Bond spy thriller, all shot through generously with comedy - most memorably in bringing back Charters and Caldicott, the Englishmen abroad from LADY VANISHES (and making them integral to the plot, to boot). A pleasurably preposterous movie, so bright and artful you can even forgive it its great stroke of good fortune : the moment when the Resistance fighter who helps and (apparently) loves our heroine turns out to be a Nazi officer may not have come as a massive surprise to contemporary audiences, especially if they noticed the actor playing him went by the Teutonic moniker of "Paul von Henreid" ; those CASABLANCA fans who know him - indelibly - from his later incarnation as Viktor Laszlo, however, may need to take a moment and pick their jaws up off the floor before they can continue. [Second viewing, about 10 years later: Maybe I've just become more blasé about arbitrary plotting in action flicks, but the luck vs. design problem didn't bother me this time (besides, only one major detail goes unexplained, viz. how they manage to knock out the guards on the train). Sprightly tone, full of surprises, and Charters and Caldicott - occasionally aping Laurel and Hardy - are even more hilarious in wartime, equably discussing "Mein Kampf" among other things: "I've heard they give a copy to all the young married couples here"; "I don't think it's that kind of book, old man..."]